CO129-575-5 Passport Office- authorisation for writing off deficiencies 31-3-1939 - 19-3-1940 — Page 38

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Chinese applicants.

The practice is for the applicant to

fill up the form and it is then given a number and returned

to applicant with instructions for him to present it with his

passport at the office of the Secretary of Chinese Affairs.

It is reasonable to assume therefore that there would be some

cases where these instructions were not carried out. Details

Enclosure V. of these missing numbers are shown in Enclosure V hereto.

Endorsements on Passports.

5.

Considerable sums are collected under this source,

but owing to the absence of any register or other record, and to

the fact that no application forms exist it is impossible to

ascertain whether all the revenue collected from this source

has been properly accounted for.

Similar remarks apply in respect of "Hong Kong

Resident" Endorsements.

6.

Renewals of Passports.

Application Forms are filed, and given a serial number, and the relative receipt number is quoted upon the application

form so that an audit verification of the receipts from this

source was a comparatively simple matter.

On examination of the filed applications the

following comments are made.

(a)

Renewals have been granted free of charge in many cases to persons said to be employed as Government servants or to

their families but the declaration, embodied in the form, is

not signed by the Head of Department or other responsible officer

of the Department to which they are associated. For examples vide Nos.52/9; 52/34; 53/134; 53/198; 54/21; 54/196.

(b)

Free grants of renewals have been issued in many

cases to persons employed in the Royal Naval Yard and said to

be "Travelling on Duty" whereas in several known instances the

applicants were returning to England on ter ination of their

residential service in this Colony. For examples vide 52/66;

52/116; 53/52; 53/122.